Unmanned Experts Inc. — Department of Agriculture SBIR Phase II: 8.1

Description

Unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and small UAS (SUAS) technology hold great promise for facilitating the management of wildfires on forest lands. However technology is only a small part of the problem of integrating UAS into fireground operations. Significant concerns must be addressed about the coordination of air assets in the high-risk operational wildland fire airspace environment, which can be remote, complex and uniquely challenging. Wildland firefighting requires the cooperation and coordination of multiple agencies and functions under the Incident Command System (ICS), interagency dispatch, and through airspace coordination and air traffic management. Proper roles and management of UAS as air assets within this framework are currently being defined based on the earlier groundbreaking work of NASA and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), and more current work to operationalize UAS technology.NASA is currently developing the concepts, functional design and technology for a prototype UAS traffic management (UTM) system with a near-term goal of safely enabling initial low-altitude UAS operations in uncontrolled airspace as early as possible. Fire aviation can benefit substantially in the near-term from the UTM system as NASA is currently working with the FAA and stakeholders to map out a transition for UTM R&D into an operational system. As this work proceeds, it provides many current opportunities to apply UTM concepts, architecture and infrastructure to support the safe and effective integration of UAS with manned aircraft over the wildland fireground.In Phase I of this research we leveraged our Space Act Agreement with NASA to understand how UTM could be applied to wildland fire management. In Phase II, we will conduct R&D to develop wildland fire UAS CONOPS that employ UTM technology. In particular, local fire departments are increasingly adopting SUAS for structure fires, search and rescue, and other day-to-day usage. Because of the benefits for size-up, blue force tracking, and establishing communications operability and interoperability on the fireground, they will want to use their drones as they provide important initial response to wildland fire calls for service. Local fire departments provide and support 80% of the initial response and initial attack on wildland fire, and maximizing the effectiveness of initial attack is among the highest priorities of the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy. However, the efficacy of using manned fire aviation assets as soon as possible during initial attack has also been demonstrated. Local fire departments will lose an important force multiplier if their SUAS have to be grounded when fire aviation assets are brought in to support initial or extended attack. Unfortunately, that is what current fire aviation doctrine would most likely require, but this research will address that problem - the integration of manned and unmanned aircraft over the wildland fireground.This research addresses the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Strategic Goal 2: Ensure Our National Forests and Private Working Lands Are Conserved, Restored, and Made More Resilient To Climate Change, While Enhancing Our Water Resources. Under Objective 2.4, to Reduce Risk of Catastrophic Wildfire, the USDA works with the DOI and other Federal agencies, Tribal and State governments, and local law enforcement and emergency preparedness and response practitioners to reduce the risk of catastrophic fire. Airspace coordination technology will be developed that supports the USDA's ability to work more effectively with multiple agencies to better manage wildfire response on forest lands so fires don't become catastrophic. The technology and methods developed under this research will also support the increased use and availability of UAS and SUAS for use by fire and natural resource managers and scientists. As UAS become more widely used in this way, they will improve the ability to man